Agency Theory in Management Accounting: A Systematic Literature Review

Agency theory is one of the managerial economic theories that studies the relationship between the representative and the represented. This theory holds that the representative may have separate interests that are different from the interests of the represented, causing a conflict relationship. To minimize this conflictual relationship, it is necessary to establish management systems, divide responsibilities and evaluate the effectiveness of representatives. This article aims to evaluate research trends on agency theory in management accounting in enterprises based on documents in the Google Scholar database in the years 2010–2023. The results show a growing interest in research on agency theory evaluation in management accounting. From 2010 to 2023, a total of 481 articles on agency theory in management accounting were indexed in Google Scholar with an average of 34 articles published per year. Finally, keyword analysis identified much content that will be important research points for future research.